Footpad dermatitis and hockburn are serious welfare and economic issues for the production of broiler (meat) chickens. The authors here describe the use of an inexpensive camera system that monitors the movements of broiler flocks throughout their lives and suggest that it is possible to predict, even in young birds, the cross-sectional prevalence at slaughter of footpad dermatitis and hockburn...

Sera of 30 Belgian and 10 Northern French chicken farms were tested by a Chlamydia (C.) psittaci major outer membrane protein (MOMP) based ELISA. Ninety-six percent, 93% and 90% of the Belgian broilers, broiler breeders and layers were seropositive. Ninety-one percent of the French broilers were seropositive. In addition, tissues of 5 Belgian and 5 French broiler farms were examined at slaughte...

In this study, seroprevalence of avian reovirus (ARV) infections in broiler and broiler breeder chicken farms in Aydin, İzmir and Manisa provinces were investigated. Serum samples (n = 631) collected from 8 broiler breeder and 18 broiler flocks were tested for ARV antibodies using a commercially available ARV Enzyme Linked Immunosorbent Assay (ELISA) kit. The sampled flocks were not vaccinated ...

OBJECTIVES This study investigated the prevalence of vancomycin-resistant enterococci (VRE) in the broiler production environment after the avoparcin ban and their epidemiological relationship with human clinical VRE from the same geographical regions in Greece. METHODS Caecal contents from broilers (n = 500) from eight livestock farms and faecal samples from poultry slaughterers (n = 50), al...

The review presents results of recent life cycle assessment studies aiming to quantify and improve the environmental performance of UK poultry production systems, including broiler meat, egg and turkey meat production. Although poultry production has been found to be relatively environmentally friendly compared with the production of other livestock commodities, it still contributes to environm...

Genetic diversity at the MHC and non-MHC loci was investigated in three commercial broiler chicken pure lines. The MHC class II and IV loci were evaluated in Southern hybridizations and molecular genotypes based on RFLP were interpreted from pedigreed families. Four MHC class II and eight class IV genotypes were identified in the broiler lines, and their frequencies differed among the lines. Li...

Ornithobacteriosis is an infectious disease of avian species that has been reported in almost all countries around the world, except Thailand. The objectives of this study were to determine the seroprevalence of Ornithobacterium rhinotracheale (ORT) and to isolate and identify ORT in broilers and broiler breeders in Thailand. Chicken antibodies had been randomly checked from 17 farms (19 flocks...

The effects of UV irradiation at a wavelength of 254 nm on the survival of Campylobacter jejuni on the surfaces of broiler meat, skin, and carcasses were studied. On broiler carcasses, the effects of UV were also studied in combination with activated oxygen. The surfaces were inoculated with varying counts of C. jejuni and treated with UV irradiation using doses ranging between 9.4 and 32.9 mW/...

Improved methods for broiler chicken (Gallus gallus domesticus) litter utilization are needed to alleviate potential impacts of pollution around broiler production operations. Pelletization may constitute one improved method for handling broiler litter. The objective of this study was to determine the change in nutrient concentration from pelletizing broiler litter, and determine availability o...

The poultry industry is now operating under increased regulatory pressure following the introduction of the pathogen reduction and hazard analysis critical control point (HACCP) rule in 1996. This new operation scheme has greatly increased the need for on-farm food safety risk management of foodborne bacteria, such as Salmonella. Information needed to make informed food safety risk management d...